Foreign Terrorists (Iraq)
29 Nov. Washington Times - U.S. Decimating Foreign Fighters.
Quote:
The U.S. is seeing significantly fewer foreign fighters on the battlefields of Iraq, because the coalition has killed or captured scores of terrorists in recent months and is doing a better job of securing the long border with Syria.
But the U.S. military has noticed in recent weeks a willingness of young Iraqis to become suicide bombers, once the monopoly of ideologically driven foreign jihadists.
We are killing them, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday, when asked about shrinking foreign-fighter numbers in Iraq.
The trend is one reason that the Bush administration is talking more confidently about reducing the American troop presence next year to less than a base level of 138,000. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said the current 160,000 level will revert to 138,000 after the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.
Foreign Terrorists (Iraq)
9 Dec. Washington Times - Inside the Ring.
Quote:
Commanders are seeing fewer foreign fighters in Iraq, a sign that operations along the Syrian border are working. There also is the hope that al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi is encountering difficulty in persuading new jihadists to come to Iraq.
..."In the Multi-National Force-West area of operations, we are facing a locally based Sunni-led insurgency. These local insurgents largely operate in and around their own communities and when not fighting, they blend into the local scene."
"Terrorists and foreign fighters associated with al Qaeda in Iraq are a factor in our area and al Qaeda gains additional synergy by developing marriages of convenience with local insurgency groups composed of the other elements of the insurgency — Saddamists, rejectionists, and criminals. The terrorist and foreign fighter presence in Al Anbar is small, but it's dangerous."
Terrorist Radicalization and Recruitment
Moderator's Note
This is a new thread, based on two old threads and re-titled. The term foreign fighters (FF) appears in numerous threads, there are two threads specifically on the theme and I understand during the peak of operations in Iraq (OIF) it was frequently raised - although I was unable to identify a specific thread. See Post 28 for details. Moderator ends.
From the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus: Reinforcing the Mujahideen: Origins of Jihadi Manpower
Quote:
Much is written about how non-indigenous, would-be Islamist fighters enter the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to join the mujahideen fighting U.S.-led coalitions in both countries. Do they enter Afghanistan from Pakistan? Or Iran? Perhaps Central Asia? What about Iraq? Which border is the most porous? Does that dubious honor belong to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Iran? These are, of course, important questions. To know and close the entry points of these aspiring mujahideen would slow the pace at which foreign fighters could join the fray. It also would make local insurgent field commanders unsure about the dependability of the flow of replacement fighters for their units, and thereby probably limit their willingness to undertake operations that are likely to result in sizeable manpower loses.
A more basic question, however, is seldom asked or debated. While it is clear that closing points of entry would give the U.S.-led coalitions a better chance to reduce the level of each insurgency, the more important path to victory probably lies in determining exactly from where these prospective insurgents emanate...
One key thing to remember
The US government has supported islamic jihadist in the past to keep Russian interests(the infidels lol) out of central asia-see Soviet Afghan war and Chechnya. Ten bucks says they will also be used to keep China out.
Al Qaeda means " the base" or to be more accurate " the database". Twenty bucks says it is a code word for a database of tracked islamic terrorists gathered by a CIA modified version of PROMIS software. When the CIA wants to jack someone up and keep their hands clean-just agitate their pool of jihadists.
Figuring Out the Foreign Fighter Factor in Iraq
2 July Stars and Stripes - Figuring Out the Foreign Fighter Factor in Iraq by Andrew Tilghman.
Quote:
Even on Iraq’s western edge, once referred to as the “foreign fighter freeway,” U.S. troops disagree about the role that foreigners play in the 3-year-old insurgency.
“Are there foreigners? Yes. Is it that big an influence overall? Probably not,” Lt. Col. Robert Jones, executive officer for Regimental Combat Team 7, said in a recent interview in his office at Camp Al Asad.
Meanwhile, just a few miles up the Euphrates River, a battalion commander disagrees. “They are the core,” said Lt. Col. Nick Marano, commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment based in the Al Qaim region
Both men are talking about the same region, and presumably have access to similar intelligence. But they come to different conclusions about the role of Arab fighters from countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Algeria.
“The fact you are getting so many conflicting views on the ground just shows what a tangled web of violence this has become,” said Farhana Ali, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp., a California-based think tank.
The question is especially relevant in recent weeks, as U.S. military officials scrambled to identify the insurgent leader who would likely take over after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq...
Some troops say the foreign influence is based more on money than actual military-age men.
“The foreigner is like John Gotti, the foreign influence is money,” said Lt. Col. Norman Cooling, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, currently based in Haditha. Gotti is a New York crime boss who was convicted in 1992 of federal racketeering charges.
“If I could eliminate the foreign influence, it would have a big impact because the local guy in the street would lose his motivation,” Cooling said. “But there are not many foreigners out there operating in the streets. They don’t have to.”
It is also influenced by a range of political factors — both on the Iraqi and American side — that lead some officials to overestimate the significance of foreign fighters, said Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington, D.C...
Perspectives on foreign fighters
I think the difference has a lot to do with the fact that one sees them in transit and the other sees them after they have reached one of their objectives. The MNFI stats suggest that the foreign fighters are responsible for most of the attacks on non combatants which makes up about 70 percent of the casualties over the last year. I would say that is significant and good reason to focus on them.
Recommend Poole's Terrorist Trail
I recently read John Poole's Terrorist Trail, where this subject is a primary focus. All reviews that I've read and experiences in Iraq back up much of what he writes about where terrorists and global insurgents come from and how they get from point A to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechyna, Pakistan, etc. While I'm not sure if Hezbollah has as strong an influence in as many places as he claims, the book's great nonetheless (plus I don't have anything to refute his claims).
Another Book Recommendation
Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq
Although this report is obviously a little dated now, it's an interesting analysis of jihadist statements about the national origins of "martyrs" killed in Iraq, at least during a slice of 2005.
An Uphill Battle to Stop Fighters at Border
5 May Washington Post - An Uphill Battle to Stop Fighters at Border by Joshua Partlow.
Quote:
Iraqi general in charge of guarding the border with Syria said his forces cannot completely prevent suicide bombers, who often carry fake passports and appear well trained and funded, from slipping into Iraq.
"This borderline cannot be controlled 100 percent," said Maj. Gen. Hadi Taaha Hasoun al-Mamoori, commanding officer of the 2nd Region Department of Border Enforcement, responsible for 830 miles of border and a force of about 12,000 people. "If there was a desire on the part of the Syrians to help us, it would have been possible to wipe out a large segment of the terrorists."
The issue of foreign fighters entering Iraq has become an increasingly high priority for U.S. officials, many of whom consider Syria a primary stopover for insurgents making their way from other Middle Eastern countries to Iraq...
" Most foreign insurgents in Iraq are Saudis: report"
Not sure if this AFP news report (15 July 2007) has been noted here:
Quote:
Most foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia, despite attempts by US officials to portray Syria and Iran as the main culprits of violence, a US newspaper reported Sunday.
Citing an unnamed senior US military officer and Iraqi lawmakers, the Los Angeles Times newspaper said about 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, 15 percent from Syria and Lebanon, and 10 percent from North Africa
RJO
All true, but then, we've played sucker along that
line numerous times in our history. Penalty of being nice guys. That's fine and we should be like that but we could sure be a bit smarter about it... :o
You're partly correct and so am I. We are there on
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Firestaller
I don't think that we're in the Middle East because we're "nice guys."
The Middle East serves our economic strategic interest ... the question is "how much of this interest are we willing to take?"
both counts with only a slight tilt toward your version. I think a far better question is "why did our lack of strategic vision allow this to come to pass?"
Foreign Fighters Or Other Countries Unloading Their Problems
Any thoughts on this?
http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=180
Quote:
Faced with a large population of young, Islamic-extremist prisoners during the Afghan jihad, governments across the Arab world found a release valve for radical religious pressures in their societies by freeing ideological prisoners on the condition that they would go to fight the atheist Soviets in Afghanistan. Many such prisoners agreed and were released by regimes that hoped they would go to Afghanistan, kill some infidels, and be killed in the process. Many of these fighters were killed, but many were not and returned to bedevil their respective governments to this day. Still, for more than a decade, the Afghan jihad allowed Arab governments to redirect domestic Islamist activism outward toward the hapless Red Army. Although the policy proved shortsighted, it reduced domestic instability for most of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.
Today, it is hard to know for sure whether this trend is repeating itself. Yet, we do know three things for certain: (a) every Arab government faces a domestic Islamist movement that is broader and more militant—though not always more violent—than in the 1980s; (b) the insurgency in Iraq, because the country is the former seat of the caliphate and is located in the Arab heartland, is an attraction for Islamists far more powerful than was Afghanistan; and (c) the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan seems to be more than sufficient to allow a steady increase in the combat tempo of each insurgency. Thus, the situation seems ideal for Arab governments to try a reprise of the process that lessened domestic instability during the Afghan jihad.
This circumstantial argument that the current situation in Iraq is an almost ideal opportunity for Arab regimes to export their Islamic firebrands to kill members of the U.S.-led coalitions and be killed in turn is augmented—if not validated—by the large numbers of Islamic militants that have been released by Arab governments since the invasion of Iraq. The following are several pertinent examples drawn from the period November 2003-March 2006:
November 2003: The government of Yemen freed more than 1,500 inmates—including 92 suspected al-Qaeda members—in an amnesty to mark the holy month of Ramadan [1].
January 2005: The Algerian government pardoned 5,065 prisoners to commemorate the feast of Eid al-Adha [2].
September 2005: The new Mauritanian military government ordered "a sweeping amnesty for political crimes, freeing scores of prisoners…including a band of coup plotters and alleged Islamic extremists" [3].
November 2005: Morocco released 164 Islamist prisoners to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan [4].
November 2005: Morocco released 5,000 prisoners in honor of the 50th anniversary of the country's independence. The sentences of 5,000 other prisoners were reduced [5].
November-December 2005: Saudi Arabia released 400 reformed Islamist prisoners [6].
February-March 2006: In February, Algeria pardoned or reduced sentences for "3,000 convicted or suspected terrorists" as part of a national reconciliation plan [7]. In March, 2,000 additional prisoners were released [8].
February 2006: Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali released 1,600 prisoners, including Islamist radicals [9].
March 2006: Yemen released more than 600 Islamist fighters who were imprisoned after a rebellion led by a radical cleric named Hussein Badr Eddin al-Huthi [10].
The justifications offered by Arab governments for these releases vary. Some claim they are to commemorate religious holidays or political anniversaries; others claim they are part of national-reconciliation plans. In some of the official statements announcing prisoner releases, Islamists are said to be excluded from the prisoners freed; in others, they are specifically included. In all cases, the releasing governments are police states worried about internal stability in the face of rising Islamist militancy across the Islamic world, the animosities of populations angered at Arab regimes for assisting the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the powerful showings Islamist parties have made in elections across the region. While the motivation of Arab governments in releasing large numbers of prisoners is impossible to definitively document, it seems fair to conclude that those governments are not ignorant to the attraction that the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will exert on newly freed Islamists, nor of the chance that it might take no more than a slight incentive to dispatch some of the former prisoners to the war zones. It may well be that the West is seeing but not recognizing a reprise of the process that supplied manpower to the Afghan mujahideen two decades ago.
Hasn't it been common practice throughout history for countries, empires, states
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ODB
To look for ways to utilize their prison populations for warfighting, building foreign bases, creating havoc, or anything else they could find to help divest themselves of the burden of caring for/ dealing with them. In that sense it doesn't seem all that surprising.
What Foreign Fighter Data Reveals About the Future of Terrorism
The author should have given consideration to profile information gleaned from Abu G detainees. It would have been a larger sampling as well as truer indication of FF presence and country of origin for FF's picked up in IZ.
Academic Conference on Foreign Fighters
An interesting note from Fed Biz Ops this morning regarding an academic conference on foreign fighters.
Quote:
The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) intends to negotiate and award a sole source contract with Foreign Policy Research Institute Inc., 1528 Walnut St Ste 610, Philadelphia, PA, for access to plan, coordinate, and execute an open academic conference on the Foreign Fighters. This conference is geared toward assisting USSOCOM in better understanding the foreign fighter problem on a global scale...The conference is scheduled from 14 July to 15 July 2009, the period of performance will complete on 25 July or after all conference materials are delivered to USSOCOM.
More here
Foreign Fighters and Their Economic Impact: A Case Study of Syria and AQ in Iran
Counter Terrorism Blog
Matthew Levitt
On July 14-15, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) sponsored a conference in Washington DC at the National Press Club on "The Foreign Fighter Problem." I presented a paper for a panel on "Foreign Fighters and their Economic Impact," focused on the case study of Syria as a foreign fighter hub for AQI. The following is taking from the introduction to my paper:
Quote:
Running an insurgency is an expensive endeavor. Financing and resourcing insurgent activities, from procuring weapons and executing attacks to buying the support of local populations and bribing corrupt officials, requires extensive fundraising and facilitation networks that often involve group members, criminal syndicates, corrupt officials, and independent operators such as local smugglers.....
The full paper is available online here.
